0:03
Before you start your next do it yourself project listen to this. You got this is on the air; you got this is hosted by abt plumbing electric heat and air owner Andrew Twidwell and Rosalie Brown, with a helpful hand. Here are Andrew and Rosalie.
0:18
Hi, this is Andrew Twidwell, owner of ABT plumbing electric heat and air, here once again with the show, you got this. It’s a show of DIY do’s and don’ts. And we’re not zooming in anymore. We’re riversiding in with Rosalie. I’m in our lovely Auburn office. If you guys are watching this on our channel or video channel, you can see our little mascot behind me, and Rosalie in LA has her little mascot up too.
0:43
We come from very, very different worlds. We see the world differently. You’ve got this like really soft, fuzzy bear and I’ve got a T Rex, with an abt t shirt on.
We bought this for the light parade this year or last year other opera and so yeah, so now we got this huge teddy bear that takes up a lot of space. But so it’s sitting in the conference room. And I thought hey, good background, right. That’s perfect. Yeah, you got it. You got to have the setting just right. You know, yeah.
1:12
We were talking off air about I don’t know, I’ve been sick, but I’m feeling better. And I don’t really want to get into details because it’s not a fun thing. Discuss how are things with you?
1:22
Okay, so where we do come together and have commonality is that you were losing sleep for very different reason. I’m losing sleep, because so you know, the psychotic neighbors, and I’ve been wishing and hoping every day that they’re going to move out. Well, good news is that are moving out the bad guys, they’re moving out. So there is no like, they follow no rules. They’re gonna, you know, do whatever they want to do. Because what are the consequences, right? Like they’re already gave notice. Right? So it’s been a problem since I, since I got here with these people. But essentially the other night, quick little story. It was the nonsense was going on. And it’s it’s not just like, I mean, these people are like psychotic, like they throw either furniture or each other or something like on the floor constantly. And it’s enough that like my entire ceiling shakes. And anyone who has a dog who’s got sensitivities, which my dog is huge and has big sensitivities. Yeah, dogs losing his mind. I’m losing my mind. And it’s happening at you know, 1011 12 one o’clock, so oh my gosh, one o’clock. So this is the worst. This is the worst night. Come on, people
2:41
don’t sleep
2:42
well. And it’s so it’s so weird, right? So here’s the problem. So imagine if you will just I’m going to walk you down a little visual. So it’s like, after one o’clock in the morning, and I am hotter than hell about this. I am so angry. And the dog is losing his mind, you know, and he’s roaming back and forth my room. So he runs past one of my bookshelves knocks it to the ground. Everything glass that I have put cheese poop, like everywhere. So as I’m freaking out, because there’s glass everywhere and I’m worried about where is he and whatever, right? He’s climbed the door he gets out of my room. Takes a header into the slider in the living room. Um, doesn’t break that or his head but does decide that I’m losing he like peas. So suddenly starts paying involuntary um, so I’ve got this broken glass. I’ve got the dog like bouncing, peeing everywhere. I’ve got my daughter coming out going, what’s going on? You know? I’m like, Oh, my God, these people, so they kill the Smash. Right? So what do they do? Bam, Bam, Bam to tell me to keep it down. So I like so I look at my daughter. I look at my daughter. As the dogs peeing everywhere. I look at my daughter, I look at the broken glass. I look at the pink dog. And I looked at the baseball bat in the corner. And I was like, um, and she goes Mom, mom, like no. And I was like, I really, really so. So instead of taking my baseball bat and going upstairs and knocking on their door, because I was literally going to like imagine the Walking Dead. There’s that guy who pressure on a baseball bat. That was me. I was shaking everything it had. And so she’s cleaning up dog pee, and I’m calling the police. And you know, I love living in Los Angeles. But I will tell you this. If you want the police to come out, you have to like exaggerate the story. So I was like, they’re throwing kids around and I think oh, I mean, I was screaming. It was me screaming but I didn’t say so. So anyway, so apart from the truth, right? So 45 minutes later,
4:55
if your dogs your dogs the size of a child, adolescent child Yeah, yeah.
5:00
So there’s been everywhere. It’s unruly. So anyway, so 45 minutes later the police show up and so, so I had it. So I think that night, which was two nights ago, Monday night, I think it was, yeah, it was Monday night. I think I finally just have to sleep at like, 330 or so. And so yesterday, of course, you know, people are calling me and it’s, it’s a business day, and I’m so foggy. And so I’m like, I don’t know what day it is. I don’t know you’re talking about like, so when you were explaining to me off air and we won’t get into details and your dark down to the soul. I was like, That is so weird. I was having a dark night of the soul do that. So weird.
5:38
Same night. Yeah, I
5:40
think so. You were were you in misery Monday night?
5:43
Tuesday night? No. Monday night, Monday night? It was Monday night? Yeah. I think I got about three hours of sleep.
5:50
So I couldn’t talk to you. We could have been talking business. Like What’s up, bro?
5:56
I had two important meetings the next day and I’m emailing at like 530 I’m not I have to cancel these meetings. And it was like things had been set up for weeks. So like, that’s literally why I was in the area that I was in. And yeah, it was brutal.
6:09
I know. Right? So so the good news is that we’re both alert. And you’re, you’re the hero this week. Usually I try to take credit for anything good that we do that is interesting or whatever. But I blew it. I was like, I got nothing. So
6:25
we let’s go back on that. Because it kind of ties into where I was gonna go next. So you came up with let’s talk about irrigation. Like it’s 36 degrees, right? Grass Valley. Yesterday, we had this. I mean, it’s Wednesday. Now we had this ginormous, hailstorm and we just my neighbors we still have snow on the ground and Grass Valley and you know, huge amounts of snow up on banners still. So yeah, it’s we’re a little early for Okay, talking about
6:51
gardening. My in my defense in my defense this spring. In my defense, if anyone actually gets received either the paper newsletter from abt or the electronic version, because I didn’t know we were going to have the storm of the century. They they the information that I shared with abt audience in March was the March issue was about putting in background irrigation. So and you see, I’m just like trying to You’re right, you’re right. I’m trying so hard. It’s been
7:23
so great. This weather has been crazy, right? Like I know, yesterday. All families down in the Bay Area and bomb cyclone, right 70 mile an hour winds in San Francisco, blowing out windows out of skyscrapers, nut trees down somebody that looked like a plumber. I hate to say it, but unfortunately, somebody died in Portola Valley because of a eucalyptus tree fell on his van while he was driving. And it hit the front of his van. So it literally took them out. Like if you had just been like two seconds or faster or two seconds slower, he would have been fine. Just crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Weather is nuts. But anyway.
8:04
So with that said, My irrigation information guy wasn’t too far off.
8:09
Yeah. So I came up with a little thing I found some, some 10 most common plumbing mistakes DIY, DIY errs make. And it’s not just di wires. Because I know I’ve done most of these things. Throughout the years, particularly in my early years, and I we train on a lot of this stuff with our technicians. So I thought to kind of get into some of these things because there’s some good really good information. One of the first things they talk about is overtraining tightening connections. And it happens so often because especially, you know, if you’re a dude, you feel like you got to really wrench on it right? And you’re putting like 100 psi on that on that supply net, and you can literally crack the fitting. We think tighter is better, because we’re just kind of wired that way. And one of the things that I we try to teach at Abt is know what is making the seal? Is it a washer? Is it a ground joint, or is it threads, right? Those are like the three main things that we use for making a water seal or making a seal of some sort. If it’s a washer, it doesn’t need to be very tight. It’s about a quarter to half turn, pass, pass hand tight. If it’s a water supply, net, again, rubber washer, but half a quarter to a half a turn pass and tight. And you know, depending on your hand tightening, I mean, we say this with the plumbers but we’re working with our hands every day and we’re tightening things with our hands. So our hands our forearms are pretty big, and we can tighten things down so it might be more closer to a full tightening sometimes depending on the person but it doesn’t require you to take out the 12 inch pipe wrench to wrench on that thing. You know, six inch channel locks or whatever will literally our six inch crescent wrench will literally tighten the supply net. You don’t need to really tighten it and we see it all the time with fitting Particularly when you get into some of the plastic fittings, where with threads, what’s actually making the seal is the threads are tapered. So like their narrow, it’s narrower at the front and it widens out. And the same thing on the on the female and it’s narrow, it’s tight, it’s wider at the top end and narrows at the bottom. So as you start wrenching on this thing, it’s not necessarily the threads that are holding it, but it’s the pipe against the pipe. And it’s that widening part. But what happens when you start tightening it, you’re putting you’re exerting so much force on the outside wall that fitting that you can crack it because it’s literally pushing that thing out. So we see that a lot of times when people try to put brass hose bibs into PVC, fitting just the crack, we see that all the time they always crack. Don’t ever do that, you got to use a male PVC line with a brass female hose bib. But anyway, you don’t have to over tighten things really, really be cautious about overtightening things happens all the time.
11:07
So that’s one of them. I’m laughing though, because I’m thinking about all the I’m looking at all my furniture. And every single piece that I have is like been, you know, came in a box and has been created, right? And I think about like, there’s always that moment where you’re like where I’m like, a little bit more. No, yes. So everything I’m looking at is like, Oh, if I think about it, I probably made some bad decisions. And any one of these things I can sit in when I’m gonna be on the floor. I have to think about that next time not to not to overdo it, right. But
11:37
you don’t need to overdo, you don’t need to over tighten things. Because you can strip things out. You can especially like if with furniture. Yeah, because a lot of times it’s a lot of these, you know, IKEA or, excuse me other products like that. You’re screwing a leg screw, or a wood screw into wood. And this is particle board and it’s pulled right out if you tighten it up too much and you strip it out. And then what do you do? Well, you got to put some more wood in there. But some stories, I got some stuff. Yeah, you got to be creative. Sometimes you got to MacGyver it. But you don’t necessarily need to over tighten things. And it’s, it’s it’s a hard thing to get past and I’ve had to get over it. You know, when you’re young, stupid. I remember at 19 years old, when I was first started in the trades, I continually did that I had to be schooled by my fellow plumbers who were, you know, older and wiser than me. Now I am that older, wiser guy, right 55 or older, or at least theoretically wiser, definitely older. This is another great one. It’s one of the things that really bugs me wrapping red tape, or Teflon tape backwards or using the wrong tape. I see this all the time. So everybody kind of knows me, if you listen to the show, you probably have some experience with DIY stuff. So everybody should have an idea of what PTFE tape or Teflon tape is. It’s a thread compound that we use on to seal the threaded pipe. If you put it on in a counterclockwise position, direction, if the tag is facing in the wrong direction, as you tighten it up, it’s just going to pull that tag the loose end, and it’ll bunch up into one spot. So you really have to wrap it around on a clockwise type of direction. And ideally, what you do is you take the Teflon, either roll Teflon, and you put it on the fitting, and you’ve put the it’s hard to explain. You put the the Teflon at your finger, or you’re using your fingers, and you want to put some tension on it. And you want it to unroll not naturally but as you loosen it, so you can keep the tension on it. Does that make sense? So you kind of unroll it, and you want to do about I was always told five layers of Teflon, you don’t really need that much. Five is plenty. So that works really well. But you got to make sure you do it in the right direction. So it’s that tag has to be in a counter clockwise position. So as you tighten it up, that loose part is trailing behind as as you’re tightening. It. Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. And this is kind of controversial, but I found through the years, when I’m I’m working on water lines. If I do a really thin layer of pipe dope, and then Teflon, five layers of Teflon and then a little bit more. pipe dope. It will I almost never have any leaks. It’s kind of janky but I’ve just learned that that’s worked for me. And I’ve had fewer palms. I don’t do that on gas, just water because water tensive is a much higher pressure. We’re running with water we’re running anywhere from 40 to 80 psi, whereas gas Is this only about four psi, actually, is that right? Might even be less, I can’t remember now it’s been a while since I looked it up. The other thing you want to know is using the right type of Teflon. So, using the thin white or thin or thick pink Teflon tape for fittings that carry water, you want to use the yellow gas rated type for gas lines. The reason is, gas is gas is petroleum product, and so is the Teflon tape. So if you use the wrong Teflon tape, it’ll just dissolve in if it’s on gas, so a gas pipe. So you want to use the right Teflon tape. So either white or pink for water, the yellow for gas and it has literally say gas on it. And to be honest, I rarely rarely ever use Teflon tape on a gasoline. It just piped up is fine. Other thing about pipe dope is one thing I learned from that from a couple older gentleman trades guys is really the only thing piped up does is it kind of lubricates the fitting so you can tighten it up enough. It doesn’t really do much. It’s the threads that are making the seal. So anyway, use the right Teflon tape. And definitely definitely put it in the right direction. See that all the time? Oh, this is a good one. So you got a clogged sink? What’s the first thing you grab?
16:24
Me personally?
16:27
Well, you probably know now. But the first thing that most people grab is the the gallon of Drano or something like that? Oh, yeah, no. Yeah. So you know, don’t use it right now. For a couple reasons. One is a say it’s pipe safe. But I can tell you from experience, that’s debatable. I’ve seen I’ve seen rubber fittings fall apart, I’ve seen commercial buildings where they use drink cleaning products, and we’ve had to go and replace all the new hub bands in the entire building, because the maintenance guy was using a product that was dissolving the rubber. And that was not cheap. So it would have saved them money just to have us come clear the line every time as opposed to actually using this product. So
17:14
yeah, so when you say cuz, you know, I live in a apartment type setting. So but I use that I try to use the more natural ways to clear these things. Because usually just like organic stuff for my bathroom sink, it’s like old toothpaste and stuff like that. So my question to you is like, let’s say that you went out and and the maintenance guys have been using during the or something like that. Are you talking about like five uses 10 uses? Like where do you think the damage occurs after one use? Or do you have a feel for that?
17:50
I don’t have a feel for it. But I know from my own experience, one use and you don’t clear the line and then all sudden you call the plumber out. And there are guys that have their plumbers that have gone blind because yeah, a homeowner didn’t tell them they put Drano down the drain. And it wasn’t going to clear the line. They shouldn’t even try it. You know and then all of a sudden you got this guy that can’t see anymore because he got the drain on his eyes. So it’s not it’s not safe. You know, Chemical drain cleaners are not safe. I mean by their very nature, it’s either a base or an acid, right. So in terms of damage to the pipe, it can happen pretty quick. But I mean it can also take a long time. I know that one building we worked on it been a course of years. But I mean we’re talking 10s of 1000s dollars worth of cheap, right. So if you can avoid it the really the best way to clear a drain. You know first off for DIY is that Zipit tool 90% of the time. If it’s a sink or shower, bathroom sink or bathroom shower, it’s going to be right in this first six to 12 inches of the tailpiece and that that Zipit that little plastic tool is going to clear literally for take care of it I just had
19:04
a smell that comes the whole thing is so gross but it That’s
19:07
nasty. Yeah. You might want to work gloves and if you are working in your sink or something, a good thing to do is or your sharp run some hot water down at first to kind of break everything up. And then that will help help it so there’s not as stinky but yeah, they’re pretty nasty. But I know that that’s why people want to use Drano right because you know it’s it’s easy to when you’re
19:32
in your mind in your mind you pour it in and it goes away right it’s not you’re not bringing it back to you and that is if it’s cool it’s right back there. It’s in your face. It’s really gross. Yeah so let’s say you that you do the Zipit, but that doesn’t that doesn’t get you will need what is your set to then as a DI wire.
19:51
The next thing depending on what level of experience you’ve got, as a DI wire you can get a hand snake or Our snake power snakes have gotten a lot cheaper now and they’re like RYOBI mix one, I think they’re like 150 bucks now. So, you know not to talk ourselves out of some work, but it’ll pretty much pay for itself with one service call. So you can get that thing, give it a shot, you get about you know, and it’s a power one. So it might be like 200 bucks, but in any event, but you can pretty much pay for itself within one or two uses, or hand sink works as well. So you do have to remove the drain, if it’s a bathroom or kitchen sink, you do have to remove the P trap, and run the cable through the drain line. And that’s, that’s kind of one of those, you know, it’s DIY ish. It’s kind of, you know, level probably, you know, at a level one to 10, you’re probably in the eight range, you know, because it’s, it’s not that easy. And you also have to have the stomach for it, like we did, we did share once right where that guy was trying to clear his own drain, and he was gagging the whole time. Yeah.
20:57
Right there with you how,
21:01
yeah, it’s nasty. But if you could avoid those drain cleaner, those liquid drain cleaners at all times, you know, I mean, I granted people are gonna use them, but they’re just not safe, and they’re not good for your pipes. Much better to use a drink a mechanical way of getting rid of the pipe or getting clearing the pipe. We’ve got time for one more, this is actually a really good one. So tackling a plumbing job without spare parts. This is where you know, we come in, because I mean, our trucks are fully stocked we’ve got our plumbing trucks now are costing us $90,000. By the way, they’re really expensive, they’re really big, and they’ve got a lot of room for a lot of different parts. So you know, 90% of the time, we can take care of a call. And we can take care of a service call that first visit actually probably closer to 95% of the time. But when you’re DIY, or you go and pick up the P trap, or you go to pick up the cartridge for your faucet, or you go to pick up one item, and then you got to go right back out there to get the other part. And you might need to do that two or three times, right. And that’s why it takes you all day to fix that thing that would take a plumber an hour to one of the things, one way you can get around that is by everything you possibly need. And we do this as well. And whatever you don’t need, take it back and return it. So now you have two trips, you’re still gonna have to get that second trip in. But to be honest, you’re probably going to have to do the second trip anyway. Because if you don’t do this on a daily basis, you don’t know what you’re going to run into. And I found even myself, when I’m working on my own house, I don’t have a plumbing truck anymore. I have to take two or three trips to the hardware store. And I’ll try to get as much as I can beforehand or supply as good as much as I can. And still making two or three trips, even having done this my whole life. So make sure you have all the parts that you need. And they kind of talked about like a leaky faucet, what would you do, you buy the cartridge for the faucet. I’m going to say something that’s I’m just gonna say right now. Don’t try to fix the faucet just replace it. At this point, foxes have gotten so cheap. And they go in and out of style so quickly now you know me right now I think we’re I brushed gold as a as an option for and that’s been around for like two or three years. Well row bronze has gone out. It’s coming and gone. polished brass has been out for about 20 years, but it’s starting to see a comeback now. So you know. And I remember putting in Foster’s that were white and red. Back in the day. Back in the 80s. They were really expensive. They’re like 500 bucks in the 80s. So it just replaced a faucet, it’s they’re not even they’re hard to it’s hard to get parts for these days, just put a new faucet in. And you’re going to really appreciate that when you actually have to go you don’t have to take two or three trips to do it. You just buy the faucet buy everything for it. Anyway, with that hope This all helps little DIY do’s and don’ts. And it actually kind of stuck with the with the theme of our show. And if you need to get a hold of us for any of those plumbing, electrical heating air problems, you can call us at 530-230-9092 That number again 5305302309092. And you can reach us you can find us on the web at easiest abt plumbing or abt plumbing, please like us on Facebook page. We’ve got a lot of this information. And with that, we’ll catch you guys next week. Thanks for listening.
24:29
Bye. Thanks, Andrew. Thanks, Rosalie. Now let’s get that project started. You got this. We’ll be back next Friday morning at nine o’clock on KNCO Newstalk 830